ITALY SIGNS A DEAL FOR NINE M-346

Italian Ministry of Defence signs a contract for a further batch of M-346 trainer jets.

M-346 Italian Air Force

Finmeccanica signed a contract worth over 300 million Euros with ARMAEREO (Italian National Armaments Directorate) of the Italian Ministry of Defence for a further nine Aermacchi M-346 advanced training aircraft for the Italian Air Force.

The contract was signed by Grazia Nunnari, head of national and international contracts of ARMAEREO (Italian National Armaments Directorate) and Filippo Bagnato, Managing Director of Finmeccanica’s Aircraft Division, in the presence of Chief Inspector General Francesco Langella, Director of Armaereo and the Chief of Staff of the Italian Air Force, Lieutenant General Pasquale Preziosa.

With this new contract, the number of Aermacchi M-346 aircraft ordered by Italy (identified by the country's armed forces as the T-346A) rises to 18. Delivery of the new aircraft will begin this year and will be completed by 2018.

Mauro Moretti, Finmeccanica’s Chief Executive Officer and General Manager, declared: “The Aermacchi M-346 is the most advanced trainer aircraft available on the market today, the only one in the world designed to train pilots who will go on to fly new-generation, high performance defence aircraft.

It has won all the most important international bids and we have chosen it to be in the running to be the platform on which the new American Top Guns’ trainer aircraft will be based.”

The contract also includes logistics support and an additional development phase of the advanced integrated training systems that has the aircraft at its core and which also includes digital training aids, simulators and infrastructure at the Lecce-Galatina Air Force base.

A total of 68 Aermacchi M-346 aircraft have now been ordered, by Italy (18), Israel (30), Singapore (12) and Poland (8).